In the Deep Darkness
by docs pupil
Summary: The Institute keeps its secrets, at any cost.
1. Part 1

_Author's Note: It irks me that there's no proper "wet clothing" mechanic, even though all companions mention it explicitly._

A frantic, male curse echoes over the crack of green lightning and pouring rain. "DAMMIT!"

Some seconds later, the Sole Survivor and her hired gun MacCready, race over a muddy hillside, guns in hand.

The lady stops dead in her tracks at the crest of the hill, swinging around to take careful aim with her modified assault rifle.

Already yards ahead of her, the young man slides to a stop in a mud puddle, yelling at her to quit screwing around.

A Softshell Mirelurk bursts forth from the soggy earth, making a beeline for her.

She focuses all her concentration on the assailant, slowing her perception to crawl. The Survivor gets three sets of direct hits, but it doesn't slow the overgrown crab down.

As it knocks her back with its heavy claw, a handful of rifle shots finally brings it to heel.

"Now stop being a big fu...hero and run," the mercenary yells from behind. "I'm out of ammo!"

As the Vaultee finds her footing, the gang of creatures from earlier scuttle up the hill towards them. For once, she does as she's told and high-tails it southward.

Their sloshing footfalls trail down toward a defunct warehouse and its auxiliary building outlined clear as day in the lighting strikes.

A dozen baby Mirelurks scuttle to the front of the building making an attempt to overwhelm the adventurers.

The woman tries to shoot once more, but empty clicking is all her trusty gun gives her.

MacCready swats angrily at the leaping babies with the butt of his hunting rifle.

They go about mercilessly meleeing the hapless younglings, all the while edging themselves toward the open warehouse door. Each of them take one of the large, metal double doors and slams it shut on the crawling creatures, bolting them closed. The two crouch low, backing away slowly to hide behind some upturned office furniture.

Pincers big and small scrap and wail on the centuries old doors for minutes on end. Then all at once, they loose interest in their newfound prey and disperse.

The duo lets out a collective sigh of relief crouched behind the front desk.

The young man's revelry is short-lived, however. "Is it supposed to be ticking like that?" He nods to her wrist-bound computer, the uneasiness in his voice now apparent.

She checks the numerals; four rads a second. Between the fighting and running, she never noticed the ticking of her Geiger counter, as loud as it still is. "It's not good." The Survivor rummages around her inventory satchel until she finds her Rad-X. "We have to move out of this radiation." She hands him two of the four capsules.

The young woman hops over the overturned desk and across the large, dark warehouse floor, hoping to find the border of the radiation. She checks her Pip-Boy once more. Two rads a second...three rads a second...four rads a second.

"Stop runnin' around, will you, I'm still winded."

She ignores his complaints, her brow wrinkling in confusion. Again she runs off in another randomly chosen direction watching her counter carefully.

Three...two...steady at two...up to three...stopping at four.

"If you get lost, I'm not gonna come looking for you."

She waves her wrist up and down between them. Four...five...four. Then it hits her almost as hard as the Mirelurk from earlier. "It's our clothes!"

"What?" MacCready frowns, not liking where this is quickly going.

"The lightning must have agitated the radioactive particles in the rain! We have to take our clothes off!" The young lady hurries around a stack of mildewed crates, undressing.

He chuckles, thinking it a dirty ruse. "What happens if I don't?"

"You die slowly of radiation poisoning as your clothes dry," she says, dumping her piecemeal armor on the ground.

The quip at the end of MacCready's tongue vanishes at the first inkling of nausea. He finds his own corner to hide in, reaching for his belt buckles in all haste.

For the third and last time, he dumps out all her collected garbage from his satchel, picking through the cans and broken toys for a pair of slacks or even a dress. Nothing but junk clatters to the ground. "Hey," he prompts from across the room. "You have all the extra clothes, right?"

"I sold them all before we started out," she answers back, regretting her decision in hindsight. "Sorry."

It's not the first time MacCready has asked himself, in all seriousness, why he puts up with her own unique brand of shenanigans, but it sure as hell wasn't for the adventure. His dignity couldn't stand it sometimes.

"Let me think." She hugs herself against the damp and cold, thinking of a way out of this mess.

His impatience only makes the chill in the air that much more unendurable. "Well?"

She shrugs, finding it a plausible point of interest. "If the front doors were opened when we found this place, somebody must have passed through here before us. Maybe they left a cache of supplies. If you go looking for it, I'll see about drying our clothes faster."

Taking his gun in hand, he pokes his head around his own wall of boxes. "I'll start with the rooms."

"I'm not looking, go ahead." Her hand waves him away from around the dusty, over-sized boxes.

MacCready frowns ever so slightly, before scampering quickly into the hallway shadows.

The Vault dweller waits until his footfalls recede into the distance before daring to collect their piles of clothes from either side of the room.

"Fire," she says to herself dropping the clothes in a heap at her feet. "And a clothing rack."

Using the dusty shadows to his advantage, he takes silent, measured steps, keeping his back to the wall. Coming to the first door, he uses the muzzle to push it open. Nothing useful except a desk with a blown out terminal and an adjacent filing cabinet. He quickly moves on to the second door. Excluding a high-set, broken window showing the green-tinged lightning in the outside sky, it's more of the same. The gunman holds fast to his rifle, hoping the last door yields a favorable result. To his surprise, there are two bodies. One dead in a desk chair, and the other sprawled on the floor.

The mercenary instantly recognizes the near trademark look of the grungy Raider type. An elite fighter and the standard run and gunner with holes singed through their bodies. Seeing as how the dead have no need of worldly possessions, he commandeers the mostly intact t-shirt, a leather jacket, a chest piece, two left arms, a right leg, and the five bottle caps in the pocket of his new pair of pants.

While dressing, his eye catches the brightly colored yellow-orange square of a holotape. MacCready pries it out of the cold dead hand clenched on top of the desk. "Freed Water," he reads out loud. The man squints at the number etched into the body of the tape. "One slash three." With the terminal screen in similar condition to the other rooms, the only person who would find this of any use is his Boss and that Pre-War screen on her wrist. He gives the armor on his left arm an adjustment yank before setting off back the way he came.


	2. Part 2

The Sole Survivor throws one last chair leg into the dwarf bonfire for good measure, clapping the dust off her hands. Her curiosity was her saving grace not a few minutes ago because inside all of those derelict crates were pieces of unassembled furniture ready to be shipped out across Pre-War Boston. Lucky for her and her companion, war halted the deliveries so they could scrounge up a good sized fire and two free standing head boards to drape their clothes over.

The young lady wraps herself in a piece of dirty canvas, knotting it over her shoulder and around her hip. Her sneeze echos off the walls of the warehouse.

A tin can clangs behind the closed door at the northern-most wall.

She whips around to face the noise, instinctively reaching for the assault rifle at her feet. A frown crosses her lips. "No bullets." The lady keeps her gun with her in any case, crossing the room to test the handle. Locked. With a bobby pin and her trusty screwdriver she carefully twists and turns the lock face until it clicks. The young lady pushes open the door slowly, gripping her weapon tighter from nerves. She feels something amiss, but can't quite put her finger on it.

Two pairs of yellow-ringed eyes dart around the shadowy office, carefully scrutinizing objects at random as if searching for something.

The Sole Survivor crouches down in one of the darker corners, keeping as still as she can.

The two Synths scan the floor one last time before leaving out through a hole in the wall at the other side of the room.

As she tries to follow them out, she stops short of tripping over a body. The skeleton at her feet is donning a dust-ridden Institute jumpsuit and coat, with another similarly dressed three strewn about the ground at various points. The clean, sleek design of piecemeal Institute armor is what catches her fancy though. Odd, considering the scientists usually refused to get their hands dirty with fighting, much less coming to the surface. Then again, these people must have died long ago. Rebels perhaps. Instead of dwelling on the obvious puzzle set before her, however, the young woman slips into one of their undamaged coats, then straps pieces to her left leg and arm, moving on.

The Vault dweller tiptoes through the alcove of the mechanical assailants, and down a long hallway. The loose boards lining the dirt floor creak and bend underfoot with every cautious step taken in the dark passage. The exposed hot and cold pipes, as well as the state of the floor give her the impression of it not being part of the original design, but still old enough to be a not very recent edition to the structure.

"Synths and a secret pathway into an abandoned furniture warehouse. The Institute must be looking for some-gah!" Her train of thought comes to an abrupt halt as she falls hip deep through the floorboards.

The young lady, hearing no rushing footsteps coming toward her, clicks on her Pip-Boy light. She squirms and pushes against the ground in an attempt to free herself, but finds it a pointless exercise in the use of meager upper body strength. Instead, the Sole Survivor starts chucking planks off in no particular direction, looking for the source of the rushing water over and around her feet and ankles.

"What the hell happened to you?"

The woman shines her wrist light in the direction of the voice, almost jumping out of her own skin. "MacCready," she breathes, grabbing her chest.

He approaches her at a leisurely pace, gun in hand. "You stuck or looking for something like you usually do?"

"Would you believe there's water down here." She points in the direction of her stuck lower body. "And I fell into it?"

He rolls his eyes, squatting down beside her. "Only _you_ could find something like that by accident." The mercenary peeks under the back of her borrowed coat, seeing her backside and hips wedged into a broken, metal grate.

She holds up her arms, looking over her shoulder at him. "Can you pull me out?"

He knows he's not the strongest of the both of them, but endeavors to try anyway. MacCready resolutely plants his feet, wraps his arms around her waist, then yanks upward as hard as his lean muscle would allow.

"MacCready my-," she gets the air squeezed out of her as he begins to dislodge her hips. Each time he pulls, she can hear her improvised dress rip a little more. "MacCready!"

"Hang on," he huffs, taking a deep breath for one last pull.

"But my-" The last big tug makes her long dress into a mini-skirt, but also gives her the wiggle room to climb out of her own volition. She scrambles to stand, gladly wiggling her muddied toes.

Her companion whistles provocatively. "Haven't seen legs like that since my first pin-up."

The young woman turns, narrowing her very disapproving eyes at him.

"Don't ya know how to take a complement," he snarks.

She holds her tongue, buttoning up her lab coat indignantly. "How about you concentrate on the water."

The young man shakes his head, kneeling down over the lip of the broken grate. He reaches into the hole, drawing out a handful to sip. "It's..." he smacks his lips at the crisp, clear taste. "...Really clean water." He looks up at her questioningly.

As she suspected it was the whole time. Free-running, clean water being piped out of an abandoned warehouse. "But why here? And why the Synths?"

"All I wanna know is if this pipe leads out of here." He squints down the dark passageway beyond the reach of her light.

"You're not even a little curious about the water and the Institute being in the warehouse?"

The young man scowls. "The last time you got curious, we ended up in this mess!"

"There's always good loot in the weird places," she points out in her defense. "What about Jamaica Plains?"

"The only one who _appreciated_ the _treasure_ was Danse. And even he couldn't find a use for all that junk."

"But-"

The metallic *bwom* of numerous Institute rifles can be hear farther down the tunnel.

The young lady clicks off her light, crouching down next to her companion.

Faint streaks of holographic blue light wink in and out of existence in the far shadows.

MacCready makes to retreat, but his employer's curiosity gets the best of her and she heads toward the fighting. He catches her by the sleeve, insisting she follow him, but she refuses with an adamant shake of the head. The gunman insists once more, and she flat out refuses with every last ounce of stubbornness she can muster.

She stays stooped, inching her way toward the firefight. At a dead end covered by a giant grate, the broken bodies of the seeking Synths bob up and down in the rushing water. As she rummages through their clothes and supplies, she finds a labeled holotape. The former Vaultee clicks her light back on, waving to the young man down the hall.

He hesitates, worried about himself more than anything. The bright, waving light from the other end of the dark puts him at ease long enough to give him the nerve to stumble over the many pieces of loose board toward the light.

"Look at what I found." The woman lobs one of the rifles at him, keeping one on her own persons. "It says 'Freed Water, three over three'."

"I found one of those too." MacCready reaches into his jean pocket.

Squishing and scurrying from adjacent tunnels alerts the two humans to the presence of more Mirelurks nearby. They run back to the bonfire out front of the warehouse.


	3. Part 3

MacCready slams the door, then proceeds to barricade it with the dusty crates laying about. "Well help me," he yells at the woman standing off to the side catching her breath.

She jumps into action without another thought, building a protective wall in front of the old door.

"Were they following us," she asks, stepping back to survey their meager protection.

"Call me paranoid, but I'm not taking any chances," he tells her heading to off to the warmly glowing fire.

The young woman shrugs, following him to the fireside.

The both of them make a beeline for their clothing in hopes of redressing properly.

She holds her Pip-Boy out toward her jumpsuit, hearing no clicking. "Wow, these suits dry fast." She slings it over her shoulder, finding a dark shadow behind a large stack of crates to change.

The mercenary runs his hands over his slacks and coat finding the material still damp. Even his favorite hat hasn't half-dried in the fire. The only articles he finds wearable are his scarf, boots, and miscellaneous leg and harness armaments, with which he puts on gladly. He pulls over a nearby derelict crate to sit and tie his boots.

"That tape you found," the woman says, coming out from behind the crates adjusting the Velcro on her collar. "Can I see it?"

He fishes it from his pocket flinging it in her direction before getting back to his boot lacing.

The Survivor turns it over in her hands, comparing it to the other she found on the Institute corpse. "They're identical. Except for the handwriting." Since her friend's tape reads as one of three, she pops his into her Pip-Boy first, listening carefully to the muddled audio entry:

 _"There are stories out of Washington D.C. that the water is the cleanest in all the Commonwealth Nations. People for hundreds of miles come to the outskirts of the city just to drink it. Three made the trip all the way to the border to take the first drink. He sent for us later, and we tested it in every way we could imagine. Two collected the data and started extrapolating the math from our theories. I hired a bodyguard to take me to the place where most say the water began to clean itself. I spent hours scouring the top parts of the rubble before finding massive hot spots of radiation. Too bad the computers near the original site were buried too far down, the information would have been useful, even in pieces. The question still remains though, if they did it in D.C. with their meager resources, why not here where we are the strongest? I must bring this to the attention of Father, he may know what to do."_

A map flicks on the screen of her wrist computer as the holotape clicks off.

She studies the map with her usual intense focus, remembering something useful. "Hey, MacCready."

"Need something," he asks, strapping his miniature satchel to his left thigh.

"You said you were from Little Lamplight." She pulls up a wood box beside him, showing him the map on her screen. "Where exactly is it in D.C.?"

The young man eyeballs the mostly foreign symbols, tucking the ends of his scarf into the folds of his leather jacket. "That eighty-seven," he points at the fluorescent green number on the screen. "I'm from just outside there."

"Do you know where any of these other places are?" She fiddles with the rolling switches, moving around the map.

"I remember Big Town wasn't too far from Little Lamplight. Other than that, I didn't exactly get out much."

The Sole Survivor sighs, moving on to tape three.

 _"Father and the Director both want the full results destroyed. They say keeping this information is dangerous to those who have no schooling in the sciences or the proper facilities. The three of us have nearly recreated what we think was the process of water cleansing all those years ago with only the most basic of equipment at our disposal hundreds of miles from the surface town of Boston. How could they say that and expect us to believe it when we have the proof right here?! When we try to expand to the surface some day again, what about all the irradiated water on the surface? If we can convince the Surface dwellers that we are benevolent, another 'University Point incident' doesn't have to come to pass. They may even learn to accept us and the Synths in time. For that to happen, someone somewhere has to make the first gesture of peace. It's been decided between the three of us, we leave for the surface and never look back. Perhaps we can succeed where the Director's would not."_

As the audio clicks off, a list of what seems to be titles relating to their water conundrum pops up.

"They must have been the bodies in the next room," MacCready surmises. "And the Synths. They must be looking for this project of theirs."

His employer mutters her agreement, reading through the graphs and complicated mathematical theories in the form of simplified charts with annotations. "This explains the oceans and lakes being clean, but not any residential water." She becomes absorbed with the other charts.

MacCready feels his stomach growl and churn from the lack of food. "Got any food," he queries, feeling through the junk in his own inventory sack. Finding nothing, he eyes her bag next, asking the same question.

The Survivor keeps her attention on reading.

"I just love these one-sided conversations," he snarks, reaching into her bag anyway. The young man comes away with a box and can of food for each of them. "Do you ever stop and eat?" He puts a box of Salisbury steak in her lap.

The woman turns her attentions from the screen to the food, wrinkling her nose at the thought of her every bite setting off her Geiger counter. Despite her distaste for radiation, her stomach also demands she nourish herself. The Vaultee swallows her pride, and her two hundred year old pre-packaged food.

"You know," her companion points out as he cracks open a can of Cram. "I'm more surprised the Brotherhood hasn't tried to take this 'Free Water' thing from here."

She swallows, ignoring the tick of her Pip-Boy. "Maybe they don't know what to look for. This information isn't exactly Pre-War."

"Well yeah, but it's still a big deal, having clear water." He notices she's like Curie when it comes to all the science floating around the Boston Wasteland, she always get in the last word because she thinks she knows everything, which to him isn't the greatest of feats. "You think they would look for stuff like this."

"If they're anything like Danse, they spend most of their time picking through the old things instead of building new things." Talking about her life in the past tense always seems to strike an illusive raw nerve, and right now is no exception.

"I just realized something." A smug grin curls the corner of his lip. "We should sit together more often." MacCready wraps an arm around her waist. "I like having you close."

"You're hitting on me," she uncomfortably tells him. "In the middle of an enemy-infested warehouse."

The slight wrinkle forming in his brow adds to his frustration. "How many times have you flirted with me out in the open?"

The young woman blushes every so slightly, avoiding eye contact. "I was tactful about it. You're just..." She chooses her words carefully. "More subtle about it."

The mercenary chuckles, withdrawing his arm. "You really _are_ from another time." He shovels more food into his mouth. "Next you're gonna tell me we're not together because we haven't kissed yet."

The young lady realizes he was talking in jest, but the implication upsets her. "And what's wrong with trying to be proper?"

Her almost indecently modest customs shocks him. "You actually believe that crap?"

"You know that foot in your mouth," the cutting sarcasm she especially reserves for Danse is now being aimed at him. "It looks like you're going to swallow it whole." Angrily, the lady picks up her crate and moves it to the opposite side of the fire.

A loud clang from above draws their attention upward. They draw their borrowed rifles in unison, keeping their eyes trained up.

"We'll save this fight for later," the young woman tells him, searching for a way up to the second level railings overlooking the warehouse floor. "Let's find some stairs."


	4. Part 4

"There's a door." MacCready nods toward the far right wall.

The two fit themselves between the haphazardly stacked boxes at the far wall to their right, seeing said door broken open. They traverse the first set of stairs quickly and quietly, abruptly stopping on the middle landing at the sound of heavy boots pounding around the upper floor. The adventurers slow their pace up the second flight, cautiously poking their heads around the corner.

Muffled screams of agony and toppling furniture press the young woman into action, dragging her companion along with her.

The Sole Survivor rounds the corner, weapon at the ready, seeing a leather-clad woman pistol-whipping a baby Mirelurk from her face.

Without hesitation, she jumps to her aid, yanking the animal from her face. The Vaultee tosses it over the second story railing, hearing a satisfying squelching crunch as it hits the cement floor.

The Raider tries to shoot down her good Samaritan, but MacCready is quicker on the draw. "Don't try it, dirtbag." The arming of his energy weapon freezes her in place.

The Survivor cringes a little at the thought of almost being shot. "I though that was Nick's line."

He shrugs in a nonchalant manner. "Sounds better when I say it."

The female Raider raises her hands in a gesture of surrender. "Who the fuck are you?!"

"Lost," the jump-suited woman admits. "What about you?"

"Bullshit! You're here for the treasure! I got a whole buncha people around here comin' to kick your asses!"

"Don't count on it," the young man snarks. "I already found 'em dead. The two of them," he adds as a vindictive aside.

"What kind of treasure," the Survivor wonders.

"The weapons the Institute stashes in here for their Synths," the harness-clad woman barks in exasperation. "How the hell don't you know?!"

The vault dweller and MacCready give each other a knowing look, keeping their assumption to themselves for the time being.

"So are you gonna kill me or what," their enemy wonders.

The Sole Survivor strongarms her mercenary companion into non-violence with her best impression of a sad puppy dog.

He grunts his dissatisfaction, submitting to her whim. "I'm not wastin' a bullet on you." He nods in the direction of the open door to the stairs behind him. "Get outta here."

Seeing herself out manned and out gunned, the enemy makes a hasty retreat to the lower levels.

"That was uncharacteristically nice of you, MacCready," she compliments with a smile as they move on toward the second story door.

He keeps his frown in place, ignoring the implication. "There's only fourteen shots in this rifle, and I'm not wasting one on that thing."

The second story provides more of the same wide open floor space, only this time instead of crates and boxes, it's rows of desk terminals with rusted filing cabinets lining the left and right walls.

A thought strikes the young man as his employer searches through every single drawer and overturned filing cabinet in the room. "Hey, ya don't think it's still here do you?"

She pockets a handful of paperweights and a small desk fan. "Well, if the scientists died here, and the Synths are looking here, then it might really be here in the warehouse."

"Would it still work?" He scans the large room for any signs of activity other than their own.

"Probably." She noses into the cabinets next, collecting old paper and a handful of bobby pins. "Depends on how old it is, and if the spare parts are available if it doesn't."

Soft, scratchy clicks in the distance unconsciously has the gung-ho fighter gripping his foreign gun tighter. "Do Mirelurks need water," he inquires, taking a step back from noise.

"They prefer water, they don't need it." She carefully reads through a near-tattered note, squinting at the faded pencil scribbles.

He suppresses the urge to drop the F-bomb, following her across the floor to another room. The door opens up to a large hole in the floor, which the woman would have surely fallen in to if not for MacCready catching her by the back of the coat. "Watch it, will ya?!"

She grabs the lapels of his leather jacket, pulling herself upright. Once over her shock, the Survivor clicks on her Pip-Boy light, shining it down into the murky darkness. She listens intently for any noises of the scratchy aquatic kind.

Deciding that now is as good a time as any, the mercenary takes the initiative for the two of them. "Well, ladies first." He gestures down the dark hole with a wave of his gun.

She sighs her disapproval, jumping down carefully, the mercenary cohort close behind.

Despite the claustrophobic dishevelment of the few imploded office walls, the intact desks and stacks of molded crates leave large enough holes for the explorers to squeeze themselves through.

As more of a practiced reflex than any sort of genuine curiosity, the woman opens every unblocked door she can. A serious foreboding washes over her as the last door opens to a decently-sized conference room housing a Mirelurk egg nest.

MacCready's face reads the exact feeling the Survivor attempts to hide.

One of the slimy, large eggs nestled amongst the centuries old chairs squelches.

She slams the door shut, hurrying through the debris and crates to the other side, putting as much distance between the clutch and themselves as possible.

The caved-in, having broken down a considerable portion of wall opens up to an unexplored part of the underground dug-out.

The young woman recounts the adjacent pipe way they abandoned in favor of running. "This must be the other side."

"Where we heard those damn things scratching around," he angrily admonishes. "Great."

The Vaultee clicks on her light, heading off to the left, deeper into the dark.

After a handful of minutes, the path begins to slope, gently at first, but the farther they go, the harder the slope becomes. By the time the two find the end overlooking a cliff, they have to carefully keep from sliding into the underground cavern sprawled out before them.

The mercenary can see clusters of glowing mushrooms in the distance. He suggests they find a way down, without breaking their necks, and head that way.

The pair feel around the now cold rock face in the narrow beam of white light, taking each step carefully and purposefully along a reasonably sized ledge.

The young man's boot slips, sending him roughly sliding downwards until his feet meet the rocky ground. He falls backwards onto his hands, clenching a yell between his gritting teeth.

"MacCready!" Her nearly hysterical voice echoes off the jagged walls of the low cavern.

"I'm alive," he shouts, wrapping both his hands around his swelling right ankle. Every swear he can think of comes to mind, but never slips his lips. He squints up at the moving light above his head, wondering how far he actually fell and how come he's not dead from his assumed great fall.

She scans the far away ground, zeroing in on a sitting figure looking up at her. "I'm coming after you, stay there!" The lady grunts and strains to the nth degree of her endurance, rounding the ledge to a corner where the bottom drops off to a hill of mud and rocks purposefully piled into place it seems. She splashes ankle deep in the muddy stones, sliding down to the bottom of the chasm as carefully as she can manage.

The bobbing white light rushing toward him from around an unseen corner eases his very troubled mind slightly, until he sees his savior squishing toward him covered in mud. "Took ya long enough." He squeezes his tender ankle tighter, attempting to keep the throbbing pain at bay.

Notices his injury, she takes a Stimpak from her satchel, stabbing it into his calf. "Found a pile of mud and jumped in."

As the painkillers kick in, his head grows a bit fuzzy. "Are you sure ya didn't roll around in it for good measure," he snarks in unwarranted rebuttal, carefully getting to his feet so as not to put too much pressure on his numbed lower leg.

The Sole Survivor just sighs, wishing the painkillers would numb his snarky mouth. "Did you see any way out while sitting down here?"

The numb throbbing of his bruise fuels his pointed sarcasm. "Oh sure I did, in the complete dark."

"I'm just asking," she gently defends, running her light over the surrounding rock walls. Seeing no other caves or traversable slopes, she grunts her dissatisfaction. "We could climb back up?"

He stubbornly refuses.

"Then we'll go this way." The grimy young woman retraces her steps to the mud pile, moving into the towering chilly shadows beyond.

Many paces past it, a perfectly angular opening leads farther away to nowhere.

He frowns at the unending hugeness of the underground place. "How far does this place go?"

The Survivor looks down at the green gridded map on her Pip-Boy screen. "Not sure, but it looks like there's another open cave at the end of here."

Limping along in the dark, MacCready takes the energy rifle from his back, mumbling about her knack for having natural bad luck.

As her map had predicted, the hall opens up to another grand rock room that has three other tunnels leading off in distinct directions. The most noticeable difference from the other caves is the fact that the lowered floor is flooded ankle deep with muddy water and clusters of moist, grey eggs sitting on piles of rocks.

"I think we found a nest." The lady of the duo stares wide-eyed at the unborn hatchlings crowding the floor.

They tread carefully so as not to disturb the mostly stagnant waters cradling the Mirelurk babies in their shells.

Amongst the seemingly random groupings, a faint glint of metal flickers from under an egg in the bright light of her wrist computer.

The vault dweller kneels to unearth the rusted metal shape out of the debris. "It's a head." The skull itself is bent and battered, but the empty eye sockets and crooked jaw make it out to be part of a Gen one Synth skeleton.

"Where there's one, there's gotta be more," MacCready reminds her. "So where are they?"

"I'm afraid to ask," the young lady says in a soft tone.

Clanking footsteps sloshing about in the unreachable shadows immediately provokes her practiced instinct of turning off her wrist light.

The footfalls make a steady approach almost parallel to where the two humans stay stock still.

"Ahchoo!"

A pair of darting yellow ringlets zero in on their location with ease. The familiar square bulk of an Institute rifle is trained on them, never wavering an instant.

The Sole Survivor cringes, still kneeling in the dirty water, while MacCready unconsciously holds his breath, bringing his own weapon up slowly.

The "naked" Synth stomps over the newborns as if they never existed, halting its approach inches from their location.

From what the young woman's scientifically inclined brain can make out in the unlit nest, the dim, running sparks inside the broken artificial skull means it has a partially damaged cranium.

Instead of shooting, it looks down at the stooping vault dweller and recites lines of a poem. "Thus he replies, the color in thy face, that even for anger makes the lily pale."

It dawns on the mercenary where those words come from, and he jumps on the opportunity to not have to waste all his ammunition. "And the red rose blush at her own disgrace, shall uh..." he stumbles over the medieval words in his brain. "...Plead for me, and uh...tell my loving tale?"

A blue spark blinks randomly inside the part of his exposed brain wiring. "Welcome, Researcher Davies." The damaged sentry steps aside, allowing the two passage to a metal door it was guarding.

She clicks on her light once again, giving her associate a quizzical look.

MacCready gives her his own look of minor disapproval back. "What? I can read too ya know."

Her incredulity is apparent in her words. "But, Shakespeare?"

"Whaddya think I did as a mayor, screwed around all day? I rounded myself," he admits in a proud fashion.

"Handsome and smart," she half jests, leading the way to the bolted door. "No wonder you're so popular."

"My thoughts exactly." He smirks at the idea.


End file.
